National Academies Press: OpenBook

Evaluation of the Disability Determination Process for Traumatic Brain Injury in Veterans (2019)

Chapter: Appendix C: Timeline of Disability and Veterans Compensation Policy

« Previous: Appendix B: Definitions of Traumatic Brain Injury
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Timeline of Disability and Veterans Compensation Policy." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Evaluation of the Disability Determination Process for Traumatic Brain Injury in Veterans. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25317.
×

C

Timeline of Disability and Veterans Compensation Policy

1636 To encourage service in the Pequot War, the Plymouth colony provides for the maintenance of disabled soldiers; the first veterans’ benefits in an English-speaking colony.
1776 The Continental Congress promises pensions to officers and soldiers disabled in the course of service; land grants ranging from 100 to 1,100 acres based on rank were considered part of the contract of enlistment.
1778 The Continental Congress promises half-pay for 7 years to officers who serve until the end of the war.
1780 The Continental Congress promises half-pay for life to officers and for 7 years to the widows and orphans of officers who die in service; this is the first national provision for widows and orphans.
1783 Washington addresses his officers at Newburgh, New York, counseling patience in pursuing demands for past pay and pensions; the Commutation Act is passed; the Society of Cincinnati, the nation’s first veterans’ organization, is founded.
1808 Control of military pensions transferred from the states to the federal government.
1818 Service Pension Law passed; means-based; disability not a requirement.
1828 Full pay for life is granted to surviving officers, noncommissioned officers, and soldiers who had served until the end of the war.
1862 General Law Pension System implemented; Arrears Act passed.
1865 National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers established (not just a single facility—various branches were constructed nationwide); veterans’ preference for civil service legally established.
1866 The Grand Army of the Republic formed.
1879 The Arrears of Pension Act passed.
1885 Act of March 3, presumption of soundness at time of enlistment for all pension applicants, although soundness could be rebutted.
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Timeline of Disability and Veterans Compensation Policy." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Evaluation of the Disability Determination Process for Traumatic Brain Injury in Veterans. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25317.
×
1890 Dependent Pension Act is passed.
1913 The Veterans of Foreign Wars is formed from the merger of smaller organizations of veterans of the Spanish–American War and the Philippine Insurrection.
1917 War Risk Insurance Act authorizes the issuance of life insurance policies to members of the armed services; a standard schedule for rating service-connected disabilities is created based on average impairment.
1918 A vocational rehabilitation program is established for veterans.
1919 American Legion founded in Paris by American Expeditionary Force members.
1920 Disabled American Veterans formed.
1921 The Veterans Bureau is established to consolidate veterans’ services into one agency.
1924 Pre-service occupation is considered in the determination of disability rating.
1930 Creation of the Veterans Administration.
1933 Repeal of the pre-service consideration in rating determination; valuation of ratings correlated with the consumer price index.
1936 Congress passes legislation (over President Roosevelt’s veto) providing for immediate payment of the World War I bonus.
1937 The category “totally disabled” is established for veterans with certain disabilities.
1938 Service members injured in the line of duty are guaranteed disability benefits in light of a potential draft.
1939 Rating schedule is revised.
1940s President Roosevelt signs the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the G.I. Bill of Rights (Public Law 346); it provides home loans, education assistance, and other readjustment services to veterans.
Rehabilitation efforts for brain injury also grew out of treatment of war injuries during World War II with the efforts of Dr. Howard Kessler, a strong advocate of rehabilitation of veterans, and Dr. Howard Rusk, an Air Force colonel who demonstrated the effectiveness of physical medicine with injured pilots.
Howard Rusk and Omar Bradley work to reorganize the Veterans Administration. Rusk and Frank Krusen work to develop the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) rehabilitation.
1952 American Psychiatric Association publishes the first edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-I); the volume includes an entry for the combat-related disorder “gross stress reaction.”
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Timeline of Disability and Veterans Compensation Policy." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Evaluation of the Disability Determination Process for Traumatic Brain Injury in Veterans. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25317.
×
1956 Report of the President’s Commission on Veterans’ Benefits released.
1956 Social Security Disability Insurance is established to cover disability-related “involuntary retirement.”
1957 Veterans Benefits Act of 1957.
1958 All laws concerning veterans’ benefits updated.
1973 The United States institutes an all-volunteer armed forces; veteran’s benefits become an important incentive for recruitment.
1989 The cabinet-level VA is established.
1990–2000s A period of cost reduction, accountability, managed care, and the closing or merging of many programs in traumatic brain injury (TBI) rehabilitation, as well as a period of growth of research and push to develop evidence-based practice guidelines for treatment and rehabilitation. The large number of injuries associated with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan after 2001 has been a catalyst to expand efforts in research, prevention, assessment, and treatment in rehabilitation of persons with TBI in military and civilian settings.
2008 DSM-5 TBI and its neuropsychiatric sequelae are considered in detail. Criteria for diagnosing an injury event as TBI and attributing neurocognitive problems to it are offered.
2010 Veterans’ Benefits Act of 2010. Authorizes special monthly compensation for veterans with TBI who are in need of aid and attendance. Final rule effective June 7, 2018.
2016 December 21, 2016. Rule published in the Federal Register to add special monthly compensation for veterans with residuals of TBI.
2018 December 8, 2017, Rule published effective January 8, 2018, to amend VA’s adjudication regulation pertaining to extra-schedular consideration of a service-connected disability in exceptional compensation cases. This rule clarifies that an extra-schedular evaluation is to be applied to an individual service-connected disability when the disability is so exceptional or unusual that it makes application of the regular rating schedule impractical.

REFERENCES

Adler, J. 2013. Paying the price of war: United States soldiers, veterans, and health policy, 1917–1924, New York: Columbia University.

IOM (Institute of Medicine). 2007. PTSD compensation and military service. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

SpringBoard. 2015. The history of traumatic brain injury treatment. https://www.springerpub.com/w/nursing/blog-the-history-of-traumatic-brain-injury-treatment (accessed February 2, 2019).

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Timeline of Disability and Veterans Compensation Policy." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Evaluation of the Disability Determination Process for Traumatic Brain Injury in Veterans. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25317.
×

VA (Department of Veterans Affairs). 2018. Title 38, part 3, adjudication, supplement 116. https://www.benefits.va.gov/WARMS/docs/regs/38cfr/bookb/B116.pdf (accessed February 2, 2019).

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Timeline of Disability and Veterans Compensation Policy." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Evaluation of the Disability Determination Process for Traumatic Brain Injury in Veterans. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25317.
×
Page 115
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Timeline of Disability and Veterans Compensation Policy." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Evaluation of the Disability Determination Process for Traumatic Brain Injury in Veterans. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25317.
×
Page 116
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Timeline of Disability and Veterans Compensation Policy." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Evaluation of the Disability Determination Process for Traumatic Brain Injury in Veterans. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25317.
×
Page 117
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Timeline of Disability and Veterans Compensation Policy." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2019. Evaluation of the Disability Determination Process for Traumatic Brain Injury in Veterans. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25317.
×
Page 118
Next: Appendix D: DBQ Initial Evaluation of Residuals of Traumatic Brain Injury (I-TBI) Disability »
Evaluation of the Disability Determination Process for Traumatic Brain Injury in Veterans Get This Book
×
Buy Paperback | $65.00 Buy Ebook | $54.99
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

The Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) provides disability compensation to veterans with a service-connected injury, and to receive disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), a veteran must submit a claim or have a claim submitted on his or her behalf. Evaluation of the Disability Determination Process for Traumatic Brain Injury in Veterans reviews the process by which the VA assesses impairments resulting from traumatic brain injury for purposes of awarding disability compensation. This report also provides recommendations for legislative or administrative action for improving the adjudication of veterans' claims seeking entitlement to compensation for all impairments arising from a traumatic brain injury.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    Switch between the Original Pages, where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  9. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!